“How long?” I slurred.
“Three hours,” she replied. “Nessa cracked the seeing-glass the moment she stepped in to check on you, but it’s taken us this long to pull you out of sleep.”
The carriage rocked from side to side, and a chorus of gut-wrenching howls from outside resounded through my eardrums and made the walls tremble.
“He knows I’m here,” I whispered.
Rosalind nodded. “A pack of wild dogs have chased us around in circles for the past two hours.”
Pitch darkness filled the window like a writhing mass of serpents fighting to slip through the barest crack. I clenched my fists and pulled myself to my feet. “I thought the palace was only a few miles away. What’s taking so long?”
“The Dagda won’t let us through the wards until we circle the grounds seven times widdershins and seven times sunward.” Rosalind lowered her lashes. “We would have escaped the dogs if it hadn’t been for his stubbornness.”
Splaying my arms out for balance, I staggered past the sofa to the back of the suite. Drayce lay on the bed, unmoving and oblivious, his blue-black hair swaying against the white pillow with the rocking of the carriage. I stopped at the foot of the bed and braced an arm on the wall, my heart aching for the latest development in the dreamscape.
“Where did you go?” I whispered.
He didn’t respond, didn’t even twitch an eye. A heavy weight knocked into the carriage’s right with a tremendous thud, and the vehicle banked hard to the left, slamming me against the wall.
“Your Majesty?” Rosalind screamed.
I fell onto the ground and pulled myself up, but the carriage lurched as though descending from a great height. Behind me, Rosalind slid backward and landed against the door. I stumbled, only breaking my fall by grabbing onto the sofa with both hands. I peered out of the window, which showed us hurtling toward a sphere of light.
“We’re about to land.” I crawled on my hands and knees, pulled Rosalind toward the sofa, and hoped Nessa and Aengus were safe in the other room.
Her wings wrapped around my body encasing me like a cocoon, and we fell onto the sofa’s cushions. I raised my head to see if the collision had knocked Drayce from his bed, but he still lay underneath the white sheet as though it had been enchanted to confine him to the mattress.
I clenched my teeth against the sensation of sharpened quills stabbing against my skin. “What’s that?”
“Powerful wards,” Rosalind said through gasping breaths. “I expect they’re testing our intentions.”
The lanterns flickered, eventually winking out and encasing us in a thick darkness that wrapped around my neck like a noose. It seeped through the tiny gap between our compressed bodies, slipped between my arms, my legs, my lips, between the gaps in my fingers and toes. I couldn’t scream, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but lie enveloped in my companion’s arms and wings while the darkness consumed the very air from my lungs.
Just when I thought I would suffocate, bright light streamed in through the window and flooded the carriage. The plummeting stopped, and Rosalind loosened her grip.
She rolled off the sofa and landed on the carriage’s floor, inhaling ragged breaths that matched my own frantic panting.
The carriage landed with a gentle thud, and my muscles finally relaxed.
“He did it. Enbarr got us through the darkness.” I pulled myself off the sofa and offered Rosalind a hand.
A knock resounded on the door.
“Come in,” I said.
Aengus stood in the doorway, his golden hair glowing as radiant as the sun. Sometime between his confrontation with Enbarr and now, he had changed into a fresh tunic and sandals with a red cloak. “My father’s personal guard has surrounded the carriage. They wish to know what you want.”
“Isn’t it enough that his son has returned to him after a thousand years?” I muttered.
“The Dagda has many children,” Aengus replied, his voice stiff.
I rose to my feet and smoothed down my leather armor, trying not to think about Father and all the children he’d had with Queen Melusina. He loved me, I was sure of that, but he never once mentioned his other daughters.
My mind drifted back to the Keeper of all Things’ lair, the rows upon rows of desiccated corpses that monster kept as brides. They had all been my sisters, at least from the same mother, and had all been drained of their body fat until they perished. Did Father mourn those girls, or did he shove them to the back of his mind in order to survive?
After kissing Drayce goodbye, I followed Aengus and Rosalind out into a vast orchard of seven-foot-tall trees arranged in straight lines, each holding apples the size of muskmelons. Some grew golden fruit, others silver, and the occasional tree held apples that glinted like drops of blood.
Nessa stood at the carriage doors and shoved Cliach down the steps. “His Majesty will be safe within these wards, but I’ll stay with him in case he stirs.”
Twelve young males stepped out from behind the trees, holding gold-tipped spears. They all had the same blond curls as Aengus and wore white tunics with cloaks as green as the leaves on the apple trees.
“Are they your siblings?” I whispered.
He grunted. “If they’re guarding the orchard, then they are children of lesser importance.”
“Who goes there?” asked the tallest, a lithe male whose curls extended down to his chest. He slammed the butt of his spear into the lawn and stared at us through narrowed eyes. “I am Ullstean, master of this orchard.”
“Aengus, son of Boann and the Dagda.” He swept his arm to the left. “My companion is Neara, Queen of the Faeries, who requests a boon.”
“Our father never mentioned having a son of your name,” said Ullstean.
“He probably doesn’t remember your name, either.” Aengus folded his arms across his chest. “Let me through. The queen of our lands wishes
